A bit of a shame that HC first releases The Hobbit separately, and then includes it in this set! I will end up with three very similar editions of the same book -- don't they take pity on us collectors?

Looking at Trotter's picture of the set: it does look like this edition will be a bit different, though (or is it just the image?) -- more ... square?

Morgan wrote:A bit of a shame that HC first releases The Hobbit separately, and then includes it in this set! I will end up with three very similar editions of the same book -- don't they take pity on us collectors?

Looking at Trotter's picture of the set: it does look like this edition will be a bit different, though (or is it just the image?) -- more ... square?

HC pretty much always does this, I expect that they will also do a Silmarillion in the same style and issue another box-set with that as well, if they do then they should call it The Tolkien Library (I might suggest this to them) Edit: I have suggested it, lets see if anything happens

The pictures are computer generated, I don't think they actually have any copies of the LOTR hardback's yet or a real box-set.

They will be more like the Hobbit when issued, curved spines, not square.

Posted on: 2013/7/23 3:18

Edited by Trotter on 2013/7/23 3:36:54Edited by Trotter on 2013/7/23 3:57:45Edited by Trotter on 2013/7/23 4:15:52Edited by Trotter on 2013/7/23 4:34:57Edited by Trotter on 2013/7/23 4:36:17Edited by Trotter on 2013/7/23 4:37:19

The Deutsche Tolkien Gesellschaft recently published the bilingual (German/English) journal Hither Shore 9. In addition to a number of papers from the Tolkien Seminar 2012 and reviews, the journal includes the article "Two Swedish Interviews with J.R.R. Tolkien", edited with an introduction and footnotes by Shaun Gunner and me. The interviews were conducted in 1961 by Lars Gustafsson and the late Jan Broberg, and John-Henri Holmberg has kindly contributed with a translation into English. Can't wait to receive my contributor's copy!

Hi Morgan, thanks for the news! Can you tell me/us a little more of the history of the interviews? Is this the first appearance of them translated into English? Where else (if anywhere) have they been published?

1) "Can you tell me/us a little more of the history of the interviews?"

For a full answer I'd recommend to consult the introduction to the interviews in Hither Shore 9. But to make a long story short: both interviews were conducted in 1961 (independently of each other), in-person with J.R.R. Tolkien.

2) "Is this the first appearance of them translated into English?"

The Broberg interview has never appeared in English before.* The Gustafsson interview "leaked", so to speak, since Gustafsson (without me knowing) posted an early draft of the English translation (without the editors' footnotes) on his blog -- I had sent the draft to him for evaluation. At this stage, the interviews were planned for publication in Tolkien Studies, and Flieger, Anderson and Drout had accepted the submission. Unfortunately, the "publication" at Gustafsson's blog made a publication in Tolkien Studies impossible: it's their policy not to publish material that has been published elsewhere, electronically or in print. Fortunately, the editor of Hither Shore was instead willing to publish the material.